"Capitalism" in China's constitution

[Chris Burford]

At 16:59 31/01/99 -0800, :


>
>                        China to Put Deng Xiaoping Theory into
>                                        Constitution
>

>                      According to a proposal submitted by the CPC
>                      Central Committee to the just ended 7th meeting of
>                      the Standing Committee of the Ninth NPC, a total of
>                      six major revisions will be made to the Constitution.
>
>                      One of the most important amendments is to put
>                      "Deng Xiaoping Theory" and "develop a socialist
>                      market economy" into the Preface of the
>                      Constitution, according to the proposal.
>
>                      In addition, the phrase "is currently" in the sentence
>                      of "China is currently in the primary stage of
>                      socialism" in the Preface will be revised into "will be
>                      over a long period of time".


I regard the above as highly significant. It has been a major issue in the
theory and practice of marxism about how fast the process to socialism and
communism could be. Marxism recognises the interpenetration of systems of
production between eras. Prior to the October Revolution, there was
controversy among marxists about whether Russia could move to socialism
without an intervening period of capitalism. Certain of Marx's remarks
indicated that the continuation of areas of peasant communism could be a
positive source of revolutionary potential. It was only just before the
October Revolution that Lenin decided that it was possible to move rapidly
on from the February Revolution. This was partly influenced by the precise
nature of the balance of forces, and by the need to have a further
revolution in order to extract Russia from the imperialist war which had
led to the disintegration of the Second International.

That step having been taken, there was a momentum to events with the young
Soviet Republic having to defend itself by force of arms, including against
former recent bourgeois democratic and petty bourgeois allies, and it
developed its own revolutionary institutions that had a life of their own.
One of Lenin's last major analytical pieces of writing, "On Cooperation",
implies the necessity for a mixed economy for at least a generation, for
materialist reasons. But this was not found in terms of political practice
to be necessary and in the countries and the parties influenced by the
Soviet Union, the essay was not much emphasised as a way forward.

In China, after the New Democratic Revolution, the party proceeded rather
rapidly to the collectivisation of agriculture which was done with less
loss of life than in the Soviet Union, and to squeezing out the national
bourgeoisie. This was caught up also in contradictions between Mao's view
of the strategic way ahead and his desire to avoid the pressure of
imposition of a Soviet type model. 

The communes which were praised as the next step, arguably drew democratic
features from  
Chinese collective peasant life in China's semi-feudal society. While many
features of this primitive communism appeared very idealistic, and at times
productive, as the economic pressures of the Cultural Revolution continued,
showed the strategy under question to be inefficient in the use of labour
time by comparison to capitalism, and idealist in terms of politics.

Concurrently as the Soviet Economic bloc crumbled in the face of economic
warfare, China has had to evaluate how it can survive in a global
capitalist/imperialist dominated world, in which it is no longer possible
totally to insulate a nation in order to build "socialism in one country".

The few words above to be added to the Chinese constitution therefore
indicate a line of thinking that China may need a mixed economy for a
century while contradictions work themselves out on a global scale. 

If you accept this argument, the crunch will be whether the overall economy
still could be said to be managed politically in terms of social production
controlled with social foresight, in the words of Marx's address to the
First International. Whether China makes progressive global alliances
including with social democrats to bring in social control on a global
scale will be important, and I suggest likely. A key issue for me is
whether internally they would simply privatise land, which is still in
public ownership. There might have to be more sophisticated ways of
monitoring and controlling the use of land to combine local flexibility
with wider strategic planning, but with the aid of computers there could be
convergence with social democratic regimes especially in Europe, which need
to regulate processes like the common agricultural policy with greater
social responsibility.

In summary there is nothing to guarantee that this compromise is not a
compromise of principle, but in the context of the world balance of forces
it could allow China to strengthen its economic power and political
influence, and help to win a bigger prize: the social control of production
on a global scale.


Chris Burford 
London